Section 341 of the United States Bankruptcy Code requires that the United States Trustee shall hold a meeting of the creditors within a reasonable time (usually within 20 and 40 days) after a Bankruptcy Petition is filed. It doesn’t restrict that to cases with assets or ongoing business activities or anything else. It requires a meeting of creditors (generally referred to as the first meeting, because there can be more in complicated cases) in all cases filed.
It is called the First Meeting of Creditors (or 341 hearing), which confuses many of my clients who then seem to think that their creditors will actually show up. In most consumer cases it is really a meeting between the Trustee assigned to the case, the debtor and debtor’s counsel. I doubt anyone actually knows why the same provision for the same meeting is included in the Code for all chapters. In reality…